I fell in love with the mountains at thirteen—
Not with a crush’s careless fever,
But with a silence that hummed like music
Only old souls and wandering feet can hear.
There, the air tasted like secrets,
Distilled in the moss between stones,
And the wind, laced with pine-sweet breath,
Whispered lore older than bone.
The sky opened its throat like a hymn,
All cathedral-blue and hawk-carved,
And I walked through its echo with boots
That had never yet bled,
But would.
The mountains did not flirt;
They demanded reverence—
Each peak a sermon,
Each switchback a confessional,
Each summit a psalm that cracked my lungs open
To let in the holiness of height.
I was baptized in morning mist,
My sins rinsed clean in glacial melt,
And the trails, oh the trails—
Those serpentines of promise,
Braiding the earth like destiny tied in bootlaces,
Leading me nowhere and everywhere at once.
At thirteen, my heart grew mossy,
My ribcage echoed with elk calls,
And solitude kissed me fuller
Than any girl ever could.
I learned the difference between alone and lonely
The way lichens cling to stone—
With patience,
With color,
With purpose born of time.
The sun spilled gold like gossip over ridgebacks,
And I swore the canyons blushed
When morning stretched across their skin.
Rocks fractured like stories told half in shadow,
Half in light—
And I read them like scripture,
My fingers tracing every jagged syllable.
Even the silence had its language.
It wasn’t absence,
But a symphony of hush—
The steady beat of boots on loam,
The harmony of hawk-wings overhead,
The chorus of trees creaking in prayer.
And I, the awkward pilgrim,
With scraped knees and too-loud thoughts,
Learned to move in stanzas,
To breathe in couplets,
To think in elegies shaped like switchbacks.
What is love if not awe strung taut across a skyline?
What is devotion if not standing,
Breathless, at 10,000 feet,
Where the world finally feels
The right size
For a soul that dreams too loudly in cities?
I fell in love with the mountains at thirteen—
Not as a visitor,
But as one who was always meant to return.
And they, vast and veined with wildness,
Taught me how to see:
That beauty is not always gentle,
That quiet can be loud enough to echo forever,
That sometimes, the deepest parts of yourself
Are only visible from the highest peak.
So I wander still—
Older now, but never taller than the trees,
Chasing the ghost of that first love
Through national cathedrals of stone and sky.
And when I reach the summit,
Heart thundering like hooves in tall grass,
I listen—And the silence
Sings me home.
Author’s Note:
This poem grew from my love of hiking and how the mountains have shaped my sense of self since I was young. For me, the mountains are a place of silence and awe, a kind of sacred space where I feel both small and deeply connected. Writing it was a way to explore how nature can teach us about strength, solitude, and belonging.
Ollie Coleman | 15 | Hebron, KY | @writenbyollie on TikTok & @ollie.always.here on Instagram
